Yellen Approved As Fed Chief By Senate Banking Committee

Full Senate vote on Yellen’s nomination likely won’t happen until sometime in December.

THE LATEST:

Janet Yellen will likely become the Federal Reserve’s first female chairman, if she passes the vote of the full Senate next week. Yellen currently serves as second at the Fed after current chairman Ben Bernanke, whose term ends on Jan. 31. If she is indeed confirmed next week, she will become the finance world’s most powerful woman.

Fifty-five of the 100 votes in the Senate are Democrats, so Yellen just needs five Republicans to pass the required voting threshold, according to CNBC. It appears as if Republicans will go ahead and push this through after controversy recently in connection with the budget and other areas of major contention between the two parties.

What Yellen may be most focused on

Yellen is seen as a dove on monetary policy, and she will likely focus on pushing down unemployment numbers. The Federal Reserve has been focused on spurring growth and hiring in the U.S. economy. It kept interest rates close to zero for years—since 2008—and quadrupled its balance sheet to $3.9 trillion after three huge asset purchase campaigns which were meant to reduce the costs associated with long-term borrowing.

Republicans have been concerned that these policies have made it easy for the Obama administration to keep spending big throughout his time in office.

PREVIOUSLY:

Janet Yellen has crossed another hurdle to becoming the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Senate Banking Committee has voted to approve her. Bloomberg News first reported via its Twitter feed that the panel voted 14 to 8 to approve her.

Republicans Coburn, Corker and Kirk voted in favor of her. Manchin was the only Democrat on the panel to oppose her nomination to the Fed post. That nomination now goes to the full Senate for a vote. It is expected to pass without any problems and go before the full Senate next week.